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Ask McCain for a little more straight talk nowASK THIS | August 244, 2004Sen. John McCain said at least two things in his speech at the Republican national convention that call for further examination by campaign reporters. So far, however, all they're asking him is about Swift boats. Q. McCain said containment of Iraq wasn't working. Is that right? In his Aug. 30 speech, McCain said: "The years of keeping Saddam in a box were coming to a close. The international consensus that he be kept isolated and unarmed had eroded to the point that many critics of military action had decided the time had come again to do business with Saddam, despite his near daily attacks on our pilots, and his refusal, until his last day in power, to allow the unrestricted inspection of his arsenal. Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." Is that correct? Wasn't it the case that immediately before Bush took the country to war, Iraq was facing a fever pitch of global condemnation? Wasn't containment in fact so successful that it forced Saddam to dismantle his war machine -- which is why we never found it? See this article in Foreign Affairs, for example. Q. Speaking of the war on terror generally, McCain said: "But there is no avoiding this war. We tried that, and our reluctance cost us dearly." Is he saying that we should have gone to war against terror earlier? If so, when and how? And which administration is he saying bears the blame? Here's the text of McCain's speech last night. On Aug. 31, McCain joined Bush, campaigning in Nashville. Judging from a report from the pool covering the event, reporters only asked McCain about the Swift Boat ad and Bush's comments about whether the war on terror is winnable or not. — Dan Froomkin
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